


The Way the Clock Ticks

by DeadnotSleeping (BeyondMadness)



Category: Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-02-03
Updated: 2019-02-15
Packaged: 2019-10-21 19:39:44
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,815
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17648648
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BeyondMadness/pseuds/DeadnotSleeping
Summary: Things have changed with Dr. Horrible's victory. So when the two nemesis-es reunite they might have to find new ways of going about each other. Also, did Captain Hammer become slightly less brainless after therapy?Rules are hard to live by.Billy is unimpressed...a lot.Maybe there is more to the other than they initially thought.It's honestly better than it sounds...





	1. Go with the flow

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The inevitable happens; Dr Horrible is reunited with Captain Hammer. But it's not where they hoped it would be.

Whoever knew that even accomplished supervillains with an intelligence of way above the normal standard, still had to do their own groceries?  
But such were the tedious little problems of mankind. Things were as they were and it was best to just go with it, just so long as one would have to until the opportunity arose for a change of routine.

Billy examined the ingredients of a can of soup he was holding to check if there were any traces of nuts in it. He had a rather terrible nut allergy. Tedious.  
A sigh made his shoulders rise and fall, giving away just a hint, barely visible by the way his clothing moved around his body, of how skinny he had become.  
After everything he just hadn’t quite regained his appetite. That, and he had been extremely busy inventing ray after ray and scheming plot after plot. His stunt at the homeless shelter had gained him an enormous popularity that had pulled him in all kinds of directions. Things had only quietened down as of recent.

There were less demands from Bad Horse coming in, and less requests from fellow supervillains as well as the occasional fan. He also did not need to invent a lot more than he already had, for whatever he was after no longer required the threat of some ray or another. Basically all he had to do was walk in, in costume, and demand.

No one stopped him. No one ever stopped him anymore.

It had gone to his head at first, he’d admit. Grabbing everything that he needed and a lot more that he didn’t need, just because he could... at last.

Eventually the fun had worn off and the dream now in reach tasted not as sweet as it had appeared to be.  
He had meant to kill his nemesis; instead he had broken Captain Hammer and himself in the process.

The last he had actually seen of the self-proclaimed hero was his back as he ran out of the shelter, wailing, whimpering and crying over the pain he felt which… in all honesty.. .was probably nothing compared to some of the things Billy himself had been through over time.  
Newspapers dictated that the Captain had successfully come out of therapy and was slowly starting to fight crime again with a sort of new-found strength and inspiration to fight for what’s “right”. Dr Horrible had scoffed at that.  
With Captain Hammer’s new-found enthusiasm also came a big shift in their dynamics. There was no mockery anymore. No battle of words in which Billy repeatedly proved that he could outsmart anything Hammer said with ease until the man grew tired and settled things with his fists. In fact, there was no confrontation anymore at all.

Dr. Horrible had not only become faster but his growing career as a villain and the infamy that came with it made everything go a lot smoother than it had gone before. So with every heist, every robbery, Captain Hammer was always seconds too late to catch him.

Billy rounded the corner, lost in his thoughts, over thinking his life as he seemed to do a lot lately and still feeling like a broken man with a gaping hole in his heart, even after all these months.  
He filled his basket with eggs, milk and bread, silently acknowledging how delightfully normal they were in contrast to his abnormal life. Of course, no one in that store would know anything about that. No one had ever recognised Billy as Dr. Horrible or vice versa. Not that there were many people in there. In fact there may have been only five to ten other customers and it was a relatively big store, with shelves high enough that he couldn’t look over them. It was the very reason he had chosen that store as his regular supermarket; he could feel small there, hidden away.  
He made it to the far corner of the supermarket and approached one of the last aisles he’d need to go.

As he rounded the corner, however, his heart jumped into his throat and he could swear it was the sound of his blood rushing through his body that he was hearing. In the middle of the aisle there, stood no other than Captain Hammer himself.  
The man’s eyes were fixed on him with immediate recognition.  
Billy made quick observations such as, his muscles looked a lot bigger than he could remember, and his face a lot angrier than he thought Hammer was capable of... also, there was a hint of surprise, meaning this was a chance meeting and he had not been followed.  
That was as far as he could get before Hammer came stalking towards him with huge, truly unfairly huge, angry steps. Billy backed away frantically until his back hit the wall next to one of the fridges in the store. He didn’t even have time to brace himself before a gloved hand had settled around his throat and squeezed with so much force he was surprised himself he didn’t die instantly from a broken neck. His shopping basket clashed to the floor, sending the items tumbling out of it.

He gasped for breath as he was lifted about a foot off the ground, back scraping along the wall. He tried to face the man that would surely kill him this time if he didn’t act quick and the intensely heated glare he saw there made him internally whimper.

“Pa...lay...” He managed to squawk out and his heart jumped in relief when it seemed to throw Hammer off of his goal for a moment and replaced the glare with slight confusion. He lowered Billy to the ground and loosened his grip enough to give the guy enough room to breathe and form words.

“What did you say?” Hammer demanded. Billy looked up with eyes watering from lack of air and pain, but no tears. He never cried.

“Par...lay.” he gasped, still trying to fill his oxygen deprived lungs with air. “I said parlay.”  
Captain Hammer looked just as lost as when he hadn’t known what he’d said. Billy gave him an incredulous look.

“What...you’ve never seen Pirates of the Caribbean?” He tried, but was once again met with zero comprehension. He made a big, explanatory gesture with his hands. “It means I want to negotiate with the captain.”

“Oh, and that’s me, obviously.” Hammer said, finally understanding, but then he turned all serious and threatening again, looming over Billy in the corner they were in and squeezing his throat just a little harder. “You better make it a good argument because I am not going to just let you go this time.”

“We’re...in...public!” Billy gasped an octave higher than his last sentence as he slowly began to see stars in his vision and his legs were becoming much too jelly-like for his liking.

“The public wants you gone as much as I do.” Hammer countered in what Billy appreciated as the first solid argument he’d ever heard out of the man.

“M...Maybe. But, I-I...am...not Dr. Horrible...right now.” Billy squawked before he couldn’t focus on his thoughts anymore. Luckily, this seemed to make a light bulb, well... at least flicker in the Captain’s brain and he let go of him completely. Unluckily, his legs decided to not have any remaining strength and he immediately fell to the cold floor.

Hammer loomed over him in disapproval, but hummed in response to what Billy had said.  
“I feel like you might be making a point here. Explain it.” The hero admitted which, Billy had to give it to him, showed a lot of progress from what he used to be.

“I am here....as m-me. Myself. As Billy. You can’t be seen... k-killing a member of the public. You’d be the villain. A-And n-no-one would testify...that I am in fact...your nemesis.” Billy managed to explain once his eyesight had returned for the most part, though there were still dots dancing in his vision.

“And I bet you think you’re so clever now for never going out in costume, under your alias ‘Billy’, whereas I never hide who I am.” Hammer mocked, arms crossed in what he supposed was a heroic stance. Billy gave him another incredulous look.

“Billy is my actual name...Dr Horrible is my alias. How do you still not get tha-...uurh, never mind. This is a waste of time.” Billy grumbled as he hoisted himself up using the wall and carefully tested his legs.

“Well then, Billy.” Captain Hammer proceeded, stretching out the name for...purposes. “As I said before, I cannot ‘just’ let you go this time. So I will have to keep an eye on you while you do your evil groceries.”

The villain looked down at the scattered food items and the running insides of several broken eggs.

“Not everything I do is evil, you know.” He murmured as he started to bend down to pick up the basket and everything else.

“I won’t take your word for it.” Hammer argued. As the hero looked around, however, he noticed that an older woman had recently started peering around the corner of an aisle and was now staring at them. He gave her an obligatory wave before realising it must seem odd to be standing in front of what appeared to be a normal man, picking up fallen groceries without doing anything. He was Captain Hammer after all.

“Ahem... let me help you with that, regular citizen.” He bellowed in a way that was supposed to be subtle and convincing, but had both the woman and Billy frown at him.  
Hammer bent down anyway and started to gather the remaining groceries along with Billy. Seeing as there weren’t many items at all, they’d started reaching for the same item and it was at that point that Hammer noticed the other’s hand was shaking.  
It was a very obvious tremor if even he could see it. What was even more curious was that the owner of that hand’s eyes went wide when he saw that the hero had caught on and immediately pulled it back.

Hastily, Billy picked up the ruined eggs and excused himself to bring them to an employee and pick up a new box of them.

Captain Hammer stared after him with a frown. It shouldn’t have thrown him off, but it did. In all their fights and clashings, Dr. Horrible had never showed his pain or vulnerability. Every punch he received, every beating, every car thrown at his head...the mad doctor took like a champ. He never whined, or cried and he was never afraid to stare his nemesis down. He never backed out and he never quit, no matter how much he had been beaten.  
That tremor was the first vulnerable thing Captain Hammer had ever seen of him, and he didn’t know how to feel about that.  
The hero, after a few seconds of gathering his thoughts, went to find his little nemesis again. When he did, he ignored the sideways glare the guy gave him and followed two steps behind him.

Billy in turn ignored him and went about his groceries.

After the final items were picked up, he headed over to the register and proceeded to ignore the way the girl stared from him to the superhero she clearly recognised and was rather awe-struck by.

He pretended as if he had no idea what was going on and paid for his groceries before putting them into a plastic bag and leaving the store.  
He walked down the street, assuming his follower was still following, and made the very risky move of stepping into an alleyway where the shadows would more or less hide their communication. He didn’t need people to start recognising him from now on as “that guy Captain Hammer was seen with”.

The usually more than stupid hero actually seemed to get the hint and followed suit, stepping a bit further into the narrow pathway and leaning against the wall there before staring at his nemesis, silently demanding an explanation.  
Billy folded his arms with, by now, a rather annoyed face. That was an expression Hammer was familiar with and it had him smile in amusement.

“I don’t know what your plan is here but even you will be sensible enough to know that it’d be stupid to willingly guide you to my residential location.” The smaller man pointed out.

“I’m going to assume you mean your home, and I didn’t expect you to be willing. I’m going to force you.” Captain Hammer said smugly, placing his big fists on his hips and pushing his chest out.

Billy was not impressed.

“I’d rather die now than let you know where I sleep.” He grumbled.

“Perhaps it’s time we set some rules between us.” Hammer offered, taking the other completely by surprise.

“Rules?” He stuttered out. Hammer looked confused for a moment and then his mouth opened in an “O”-shape of understanding, which had Billy confused in return.

“You don’t know what those are? That explains a lot.” The hero began, almost sympathetically. “You see, rules are wh-...”

“I know what rules are, you moron!” Billy snapped, interrupting him. He folded his arms a little tighter and closer to his chest in impatience.

“Right...then yes, rules. One of them being that we cannot attack or assault each other when we are out of uniform.” Hammer proceeded to explain.

“You’re willing to set those kinds of rules between us?” Billy raised his eyebrows in disbelief. “Why? After everything...why this?”

“The way I see it...you need to be punished severely for your hideous crimes, and you will. But my therapist has had many sessions with me on the matter and we came to an agreement that killing you would be lowering myself to your level, and that will do no one good.”  
Billy bit his tongue hard enough to draw blood to refrain from commenting on what actually occurred at the homeless shelter.

“Then what were you doing in the store? Felt like killing me.”

“You’re still here, though.” Hammer explained, ignoring how Billy was pointedly rubbing the darkening bruises on his throat with a clear subliminal message saying “barely”. “Anyway, things are not what they used to be. The world has evolved and we need to evolve with it. Our relationship needs to adapt to our current positions.”

“Your therapist must have said that because there is no way that came from your brain.” Billy said scoffing, trying not to gag at the term ‘relationship’.

“Does it matter who it came from?” Hammer challenged, to which Billy wisely shut up. “Anyway, another rule is that neither of us is allowed to attack our homes or us when we are at home.”

“But we are not allowed to flee and hide at home upon confrontation.” Billy quickly added. “That would be childish.”

“But what if you accidentally left something useful at home?” The Captain asked in return, but upon seeing Billy’s impatient look, he just nodded. He would figure out what to do if it ever came to that.

It seemed like fair enough rules to abide by, but once Captain Hammer extended his hand to shake on it, Billy simply looked at it with reluctance. He feared for the opportunities this opened. If this meant that Captain Hammer would now follow him home, it would break a boundary they had never crossed. It would make it more personal between them. They would get to know each other. The villain wasn’t sure if he was ready for that or if he even wanted that.

“Oh and another: we never intend to kill each other.” Captain Hammer quickly added while keeping his hand slightly extended. The ‘intend’ part in that sentence had a shiver run down Billy’s spine and a small amount of cold sweat break out. His curiosity was much stronger than that however.

“And what exactly is the point of these rules?” He inquired suspiciously.

“We have a history, Doc, and I know for certain neither of us wants to find a new nemesis. Frankly, no one can live up to me and the tabloids love best our battles of wits.” His nemesis started.

“Not much of a battle...” Billy muttered under his breath.

“So we need these rules to ensure our continued… enemy… ness, in a safe and controlled way.” Hammer finished.

It half made sense. They were at the point where they both had stepped up their game, Dr. Horrible more so than Captain Hammer, and if it would continue they would’ve eventually ended up landing blows closer to home. Things would have escalated beyond the point of mercy and one of them might very well have ended up dead.

Nevertheless, Billy knew that if he would shake Hammer’s hand it’d mean he would be forced to show the man where he lived. Quite frankly, as far as he could tell, Hammer was out to punish him for everything he had done, and perhaps to a certain degree Billy felt he deserved to be punished. There was a complicated part of him that hated himself, or what he had become.

“Are you afraid you can’t do anything but break the rules?” Hammer taunted and that snapped him out of his thoughts and gave him the final push to take the extended hand and shake it. It however only left him wincing at the pain of Hammer crushing it in a firm grip.

“Never afraid.” Billy replied shakily, though trying to steady his voice.

“Then your place it is.” Captain Hammer said with a smug smirk, in a voice that he probably didn’t realise was rather creepy.


	2. Before all was said and done

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Billy & Captain Hammer have a therapeutical chat about everything, and while it is in no way what either expected...some things will never change.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So this chapter I found rather difficult to write as I had to keep both of them in character, which is hard when it involves a lot of talking and Captain Hammer.

Billy had never been in more of a hurry to get home. His eyes were focused in an intense stare on the pavement below his feet and he desperately tried to ignore the boot steps keeping up with him without much effort.

“So, your place, hm? You keep all of your...villainy stuff there?” The owner of the boots asked in what Billy found a very rude interrupting of a comfortable silence.

“No.” The villain answered without any enthusiasm. “I used to keep them there, but my recent success has put me in the position where I can afford a separate location for my actual lab. It lessens the risk of getting my identity out there.” At the last sentence, he shot a glare towards the hero who was definitely forming a risk of that right now.

“Don’t twist your panties, Doc. No one’s gonna find out.” Hammer spoke loudly before patting him on the back with such force that Billy almost fell over.

“They will if you keep calling me that.” He snarled through gritted teeth while testing his shoulder muscles after that “friendly” pat. “It’s ‘Billy’ out here.”

“Yeah yeah, Billy-boy.” The hero laughed and Horrible grimaced.

Once they entered his neighbourhood, he could see the familiar neighbours stare out of their windows, or from their gardens. Obviously it was Captain Hammer they recognised but it did not make Billy feel much better about the situation. He picked up his pace even more until he reached the corner, ground level apartment in a 50’s built apartment block.

His small front garden was overgrown with weeds which covered the window facing the street enough so that you couldn’t immediately look inside. The entrance hall of the building was right next to his apartment, so he didn’t have any immediate neighbours, and extended some way out of the rest of the building with thick grey stone walls, giving his own apartment an even more private appearance.

Billy approached his door and took out the keys to unlock it before quickly ushering Hammer in.  
Only when he shut the door did he breathe a sigh of relief. He carefully placed his keys on a small dish perched on a table near the door and ventured further into his apartment, moving to put away the groceries in the kitchen.  
He’d almost forget he had a guest, for he had been unusually quiet, until said guest spoke up.

“Thís is where you live?” Hammer sounded a combination of surprised and mortified...or perhaps disgusted.

Billy stepped into his living room and looked around upon having heard the tone of voice. Everything was neatly organised and it was clean. The only odd thing in the apartment was the red lab coat suspended from a washing line with some newspaper beneath it that had red dots splattered all over them. Clearly, he had just given it a colouring bath and it was still drying.

“Point being?” he asked a little offended. Hammer’s reply came only after about a minute of silence and more looking around.

“It’s tiny.”

“It’s a two-person apartment, what’d you expect?” Horrible scoffed, checking on whether his lab coat was dry yet.

“My bedroom is bigger than this.” Hammer commented with amusement. Billy glared at nothing in particular, frustration beginning to boil inside him.

“That’s the flaw in the system for you. You get the biggest houses and statues for turning your brain off and bashing someone else’s in. I use my brain to an extraordinary extend trying to actually make the world a different place, instead of just hurting people, and I get nothing but high hospital bills. No one pays anything for us, villains. The world would rather be falling to decay than admit they have flaws.”  
If he sounded bitter it’s only because that was exactly how he felt. It wasn’t fair but only the people that dared to turn their brain on would ever come to realise that. Still, why did the power always fall to the ones who’ve switched theirs off? That was something he still couldn’t understand.

“But you hurt people.” Hammer countered.

“That is not the point. That’s just collateral damage in trying to reach a goal that will eventually help everyone.” Horrible said, scoffing once more.

“You force people into something they don’t want to be in, and that’s evil.” Hammer continued to argue him, stepping closer ever so slowly. Billy glared him down, not backing away, not in his own home.

“They just don’t know yet what they actually want, because they’ve been brainwashed by those supposed to protect them.” He argued in return. Hammer kept getting closer until he was right in front of him.

“It’s not for you to decide what they actually want.”

“What do you know? You only think with your fists.” Billy waved his hand, metaphorically waving the arguments off but Hammer caught and held on to his wrist which forced his attention back to it.

“I’m a hero. I know when, where and who I need to beat, I don’t need underlying complicated motives.” The hero spoke proudly.

“And what a hero you are! Ran away when I stepped up my game to not be seen again for months! You let this town fall to the villains and the posers. Tell me, what kind of a hero does that?!” Dr. Horrible now started to raise his voice, the frustrating boiling higher and higher in his system and he would not back down.

“You killed my girlfriend.” Came the simple answer but it was a low blow, lower than he’d expected.

“I killed her? ME?! Any moron could see that the ray broke when you knocked me across the room! I TOLD you not to fire it!” He had been pushed past his limit now. There was no fear for a beating anymore when he leaned in intimidatingly close to his nemesis’ face. “You ran off, wailing like a baby while she was dying. She died in MY arms, not yours! And you know after all that, what got me the most? You hid like a coward for all that time... but she died still believing you would safe everyone. What a hero indeed.”  
He spoke the word ‘hero’ as if it made him physically sick which was rather ironic because what happened in the next split second had him feeling actually sick.

Before he could see it coming, a fist had collided with his eye and part of his nose. The force had him seeing stars, losing his balance and all control over his body and sufficiently knocked the fluids in his head around in such a way he felt instantly nauseous.

The only reason he didn’t fly across his living room, no doubt breaking a piece of furniture, was because Captain Hammer still held on to his wrist. Once the force of the blow had been absorbed, his wrist was released and he was dropped to the floor.

Billy gasped softly and bit back any other noise after that, eyes shut against the swirling in his head and in his vision.   
His ears were still ringing from the confrontation, so he didn’t bother listening for Hammer’s moves. In fact, he couldn’t find it in himself to care if he got completely beaten up, despite their agreement. He was feeling pain, a different kind, and that was more than he had felt in too long.

Once he could finally open his eyes… well, one of them anyway, he was immediately faced with the blood dripping on the floor. His nose, he decided upon inspecting it, wasn’t broken. Thank god.

Billy pushed himself in a sitting position, pressing his back to the wall to have some form of support and proceeded to feel his other eye for the severity of the damage done. He winced at the pain it sent through his head and realised how swollen it must be.

He was so wrapped up in his observations that he wasn’t aware of any other movement until a vaguely rectangular object wrapped in a cloth was held in front of his face. The wave of cold coming off of it was immediate and he looked wide-eyed up at the presenter of the object.  
Captain Hammer refused to look him in the eye as he held up what seemed to be a frozen pack of something wrapped in a dishtowel.

Without exchanging words, and while simultaneously holding his nose to stop the bleeding, Billy took the offer and pressed the freezing object to the painful side of his face, wincing at the stinging sensation, but soon relaxing to the numbing cold seeping into his skin.

Hammer sat down on the couch, staring ahead of him, sighing deeply.

“I suppose I’m going to be the one having trouble obeying those rules.” He said after a while, breaking the comfortable silence.

“Suppose so.” Billy mumbled in a hoarse voice, trying to fight the persistent dizziness.  
Another silence followed, lasting a few minutes.

“Have you talked about it?” Captain Hammer asked, never meeting the other man’s eyes. Despite that, he could feel the confused look. “About that day at the shelter.” He clarified.

Billy didn’t answer immediately. How was that any of his business anyway? Years of beating the shit out of him without even bothering to find out what he was planning in the long run, and now he was trying to get all deeply psychological with him? What was that all about? He did not owe him an answer whatsoever.

And yet, he couldn’t stop himself in doing so.

“...no.”

“My therapist said that with any other client, he would advise that the two parties involved come together and discussed what happened, each from their own point of view. But he said that it might be probably impossible to do so in this situation.” Hammer spoke, sounding… wise. It had Billy listen to his words carefully. “But perhaps it’s not. We are here now… both of us. And no one can hear or see us.” Hammer revised those words for a second. “No one can hear or see us, right?”

Billy rolled his good eye, but shook his head a careful no.

“Good. Well… then perhaps we should talk. A lot of people are very pro-talking, I’ve never tried it.” Now that last bit sounded more like him.

Horrible mulled it over, leaning his head against the wall and staying completely still in a more pregnant silence.

“Ah, what the hell. What’s the worst that could happen.” He finally spoke, sounding more as if he was talking to himself than towards the person laying out the proposition. “Let’s do it.”

“Good! I knew you had some reasoning in you, doc!” Captain Hammer said cheerfully, oblivious to the snarl from his nemesis. “But I think we shouldn’t do this on an empty stomach. How about we order Chinese? I know just the place.”

And so, about half an hour later, they were both seated at Doctor Horrible’s dining table, several containers of Chinese food laid out between them as they sat opposite each other. Horrible himself wondered why he had even agreed to this. He was pretty sure there was something against having a private dinner at your own home with your arch-nemesis. There must be some rules against it, unspoken or not.  
He had taken a couple of bites before he noticed that the Cap was staring intently at him.

“What?!” Billy snapped after swallowing the food down. He was sporting a proper black eye, but at least he was able to open it again and most of the swelling had gone down.  
Captain Hammer seemed completely unfazed by his snappy behaviour.

“As far as I know it’s important that we listen… what’s the word… objecta… ob… objectively to each other. Because we both have our experiences, and that doesn’t make it wrong. Or something.” Hammer started and Billy had to suppress a grin because of course this man would forget the word “objectively”.

“Sure.” Billy instead grumbled.

“Let’s try to be open about this.” Hammer said with a warning stare, which made Billy snap out of his grumpiness. “So, the stage is yours, as they say.”

“What...me first?” Billy asked honestly surprised. Upon receiving a nod, he looked down at his food to focus on something else than his nemesis’ face. “OK...well. I-I...am not sure where to start. OK, so I came there to put an end to you...”

“Yea, what was that about? We never kill each other. I foil your plans or you try to ruin my day sometimes, but this time you came out just to kill me. Why?” Hammer inquired in all seriousness.

Billy looked up at him and stared for a while, until he found his tongue again.

“You’ve followed my blog yourself; you know how badly I wanted to get into the Evil League of Evil. All I needed was to do was prove myself. Their eyes were finally on me. But the heist for the wonderflonium was not at all spectacular, and then my first attempt at using the freeze ray ended in humiliation.”

“Wait, wonder-what now?”

“Wonderflonium. You know… the heist?”

“Doesn’t ring a bell.”

“Where I stole the van from a distance...?

“You’ll have to be more specific.”

“...Where you met Penny...”

“OH! That one. Yes, I suppose that was not really what they were looking for as far as I know them.”

“Exactly.” Billy grumbled for a moment before continuing with his story. “Anyway... they gave me one last shot; I had to kill someone. Which, obviously, I wasn’t happy with at all.”

“Why?” Hammer inquired and Billy looked at him as if he’d just grown two heads.

“Because I’m not a killer.” He answered, mortified he even had to spell this out.

“You’re a villain, right? I thought that was just part of what they do.” Hammer commented with a slight shrug.

“...well, no. Not all of them anyway, and certainly not me. My style is clever and elegant, and killing is neither of those. It’s messy, bloody, and it… I… I really don’t want to see the life leave someone’s eyes or anything like that.” The villain frantically tried to explain.

“Hm, I never knew that. Either way… you’re saying all of this but you did come out that day to kill me.” The hero said accusingly.

“Y-yes. That was... I mean...” Billy looked away in shame. “You have to understand that to me, Penny was not just a fling. A feeling of that moment...or just a...a someone to share the bed with. She was wonderful, smart, gorgeous, and when I looked at her, I saw the future, my future. She wás my driving power to changing the world. In the end, no one would have to suffer anymore and it became not only the goal for myself, but a present I wanted to give her. So when yóú swept in and stole her before I could even talk to her… it was bad enough on its own. But when you came by the laundro-mat, daring to say those things to my face... it hurt me deeper than any of your punches could ever reach and something just… snapped.” He trailed off, voice raw with emotion, almost not noticing that he was telling his nemesis about his deepest feelings. Not that it mattered; she was gone. He was over-sharing now, and he couldn’t stop.

“Keep going.” Captain Hammer encouraged, unidentifiable emotion in his voice.

“So then it got me thinking: they want me to kill someone, but killing innocent people is just wrong and unnecessary. But there you were… always foiling my plans, getting in my way, and now destroying my future. I could do it, I thought. I really thought I could have no mercy on you. But once the moment was there, and you couldn’t fight back, I just… couldn’t. I had my finger on the trigger but I couldn’t pull it. I think even if the freeze ray hadn’t failed, I wouldn’t have killed you.”

Silence fell over them, a few nervous bites of food where taken and neither dared to look at the other.

“As I unfroze, the first thing I saw was that death ray pointed at my head. I reacted on instinct when I hit you across the room and I suppose. Something snapped in me as well. I thought that if you had upped your game and were now ready to try and kill me, I better stop that before there’ll be casualties. I better put an end to you. But your ray was faulty, I should have suspected that.” Captain Hammer continued the story from his point of view, leaning back in his chair.

“It was faulty because it crashed to the floor.” Billy glared daggers at the man.

“I know.” And for the first time, Billy saw sincerity in the face of the other man, manifested in a pained smile. All the villain could do was stare, eyes widened and at an almost complete loss of words.

“...you… know?”

“There’s footage of that day. I’ve seen it, quite a few times.” The hero admitted. “But I still can’t find it in me to admit to it... that would mean I failed as a hero. In a spectacular way.”

“Think you already did that by running away screaming.” Billy offered unhelpfully.

“Yes, alright!” This time it was Hammer’s turn to snap at the other. “Point is, yes, I broke the damn ray, but yóú made a Death Ray to begin with, with the intention to kill. Because of both of our faults, someone died. And not just anyone.”  
Both fell into a sad silence for about a minute, remembering Penny.

“You may say and think what you want, Doc. But despite how I’ve spoken to you about it, and perhaps that was wrong, I treated her well. I genuinely liked her.” Captain said sternly, lowering his voice as if he was afraid anyone else would hear it. Billy stared at him harshly.

“I know you treated her well. She told me that multiple times when we spoke.” He spat. “But did you love her?”

“...I don’t know.” Hammer confessed and upon seeing Billy open his mouth with the clear intention to start another tantrum, he held up a hand to stop him. “I… I’ve never been in love before, alright? Or felt affection for that matter. Sex is what I know, that’s what I do, and I know what women want when dating someone. I can uphold that for a short while. But Penny, she was different.”

“Wow. You’re really as shallow as you look.” Billy commented with a roll of the eyes.

“Hey, it’s not my fault.” Hammer argued in return, glaring.

“What, mummy didn’t love you enough?” It was meant as a mocking comment, but the response caught the villain off guard completely.

“I have no idea, never met her.” It came out so casually, as if it meant nothing.

“O-oh. And....your father?”

“Same story.”

“But where did you grow up?”

“Private school for those born with superpowers.” Hammer shrugged. “They taught me everything I needed to know, love and affection wasn’t one of those things.”

“...that explains a lot.” Billy mumbled, mindlessly stirring through his food. “Does anyone know this?”

It was then that Hammer started to shift uncomfortably in his chair and looked like his shirt was slowly starting to strangle him with the way he tugged on the collar.

“Not even the most intense fans.” He admitted softly. It made Billy equally uncomfortable and he felt that he should say something positive, but the concept tasted so foreign on his tongue. It made it harder than it should have been.

“Y...” great now he made a noise and Hammer was looking at him, expectantly. Evidently he wasn’t going to get away with dropping the subject anymore. “...y-you turned out alright, all things considered.”

Hammer bellowed a laugh and Billy’s eyes snapped up in confusion. Before he could ask what was so funny, the hero pointed at his face.

“You turned as red as a strawberry! I’ve never seen that look on you; it’s hilarious!” Hammer continued to laugh, ignoring the fortune cookie tossed at his head.

Eventually the laughter quieted down and the rest of the food was finished in silence. Afterwards, Billy began clearing out the containers, which had all been scraped clean, and making a pot of coffee. He took his time standing in the kitchen, absentmindedly touching his bruised face, but apparently, or so he assumed, he had been away for too long to not make the other one suspicious as soon there was a large figure appearing in the corner of his eyes, blocking the way out of the kitchen.  
The way the brows of the hero were furrowed in what he could only imagine was concentration had Billy frown himself.

“What?”

“You’re a wreck.” Hammer stated. It forced a huffed laugh out of Billy.

“Well o-..” but he was cut off by the hero stepping further into the kitchen and pointedly looking down at him.

“You are much lighter than you were and your wrists are thinner.” He pointed out and the villain had honestly not expected him to make such observations.

“How would you know?” he decided to counter which received a smug smile in response.

“Part of my weekly, almost daily, routine almost a year ago was literally throwing you around. I know how heavy you are supposed to feel when I lift you.”

Billy didn’t know how he felt about that answer and so he refrained from answering. Instead, he offered the other man a mug of coffee, who took it and stared at the liquid for a while with a look Billy couldn’t file under anything he knew. Hammer seemed to have a lot of new expressions and reactions he had never seen before. Time to start a new file.

“Do you take anything in your coffee?” he decided to ask Hammer after more seconds of staring into dark liquid.

“A dash of milk and two sugar cubes.” the rehearsed answer came and Billy could not stop the eye roll. 

“Of course you do.”

This incident would not be the last time they were together under less violent situations. In fact, Hammer would make it a point to ‘check on his evil schemes’ a few times per month. Billy had learned quite early on to stuff his pantry full, because the self-proclaimed hero would absolutely raid it.  
The villain in the story was, obviously, not very pleased with this new one-sided arrangement but nevertheless he’d bend over backwards to make it go by smoothly.  
Despite the annoying visits Hammer had yet to catch him doing anything villainous though the streak of successful crimes continued.   
He could tell it was frustrating the hero for every visit, he got a little less careful and a little less…polite.

Until the day came where he was caught.

**Author's Note:**

> I will try to update regularly. Hope you all enjoyed this first chapter.
> 
> I have no idea yet how long this will be.


End file.
